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by LaureaDaphne
Summary: Togami drags Naegi to an art museum after school. Naegi isn't sure why.


**Note** : So apparently today, 10/7, would be Naegami Day in Japan. And hey, who am I to ignore an arbitrarily determined holiday based on a language I don't speak? Please enjoy this bit of fluff in celebration!

* * *

"What took you so long?"

Naegi stopped short as he exited the classroom, looking around to see who had spoken to him. He'd thought that all his classmates had gone on to their various clubs or other after-school activities – but to his surprise, Togami stood in the mostly empty hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

Naegi had the sudden urge to check over his shoulder to see if there was someone else that Togami might be talking to. For all that they were classmates, the heir hardly ever seemed to have much to say when Naegi was around. All he did was stare with a scowl so intense Naegi could feel it prickling across his skin even with his back turned – the same scowl Togami was sending his way now.

"I was just packing up the last of my stuff," Naegi said. He decided not to mention that he'd spent a while struggling with the persistently stuck zipper on his backpack – that would probably just get him a lecture about the quality of his belongings. "Uh… you weren't waiting for me or anything, were you?"

"I don't stand around here for my amusement." Togami turned sharply and headed away down the hall. "Come with me."

Naegi blinked after him for a moment, but when the other boy didn't even slow down, he shrugged and hurried to catch up. "Where are we going?"

"Out."

That wasn't much of an explanation. "Out where?" Naegi asked. "You mean… out like off the school grounds? Is that allowed?"

"Is it during school hours?"

"Well… no."

"Then what problem do you imagine there would be?" Togami didn't so much as pause as he strode through the Hope's Peak Academy gates.

On the road outside, a smooth black car waited, its shining exterior and tinted windows proclaiming that it was probably worth more than the combined total of all Naegi's possessions put together. As Togami approached, a man wearing a neatly tailored uniform circled around to the back door and opened it just in time for the heir to slide easily onto the seat.

Naegi hung back, not entirely sure what was expected of him. He looked up at the chauffer for some kind of hint, but the man's expression didn't so much as flicker.

"Well?" Togami called impatiently from inside the car.

With that encouragement, Naegi inched forward and crawled through the door the chauffer was still patiently holding open. "Thanks," he said automatically, but the man just closed the door without acknowledging him.

Settling back into the rich, fine leather of the seat, Naegi glanced over at Togami in the seat beside him. He knew the other boy must be used to luxurious surroundings like this… but for some reason, he looked a little tenser than Naegi would have expected. He glowered directly forward as if the road ahead of them had offended him in some way. Naegi watched his handsome profile for a few more moments, waiting to see if he intended to explain what this was all about… but all he got was silence.

A few minutes later, the car came to a halt, and the chauffer opened the door again so that Togami could get out. When the door didn't immediately slam shut again and leave Naegi locked inside, he figured that meant he ought to get out, too.

Naegi hadn't been sure where exactly Togami was taking him… but he hadn't expected to find himself at a nearby art museum. He looked up at Togami with a puzzled frown. "Uh… what are we doing here?"

"What, did you leave your brain behind at the school?" Togami demanded, waving a hand at the chauffer. That seemed to indicate they were done, because the car began to drive off down the street without them. "We're going to look at art. Why else would we be here?" He began climbing up the stairs to the front entrance.

"Well, yeah, I figured that," Naegi said, trailing along behind him. "I was just wondering why."

"Because it's a disgraced that a student at Hope's Peak Academy is unfamiliar with one of the finest art collections in the city when it's less than five miles away."

Naegi was about to ask how Togami knew he'd never been to this museum… but no, it had come up a couple weeks ago, hadn't it? Celeste and Yamada had been having one of their fierce arguments about art styles, and the rest of the class had ended up getting drawn in to it. Naegi had managed to avoid choosing sides when he'd told them he hadn't seen much of the art they were arguing about. He hadn't even realized Togami was listening at the time – he'd looked like he'd been engrossed in a book off to one side, not even deigning to participate.

"I guess I could've made time to see if before now," Naegi said slowly. "But… you know, I'm sure I'd have gotten around to it eventually. You didn't have to drag me here."

Togami paused, his hand on the museum door. "Do you object to having a cultural experience?"

"Uh… not when you put it like that," Naegi said.

"Did you have anything else to do this afternoon?"

"Not really…"

"Then what exactly are you complaining about?" Togami demanded, his expression icy.

Naegi bit his lip. The way Togami had insisted he come to the museum had been kind of abrupt… but he'd never actually forced Naegi to come along. And it would be pretty rude to waste the time Togami had clearly been willing to invest in this trip.

"I guess I'm not complaining," he said at last.

"All right, then." Togami's shoulders relaxed a little. "Come on, I didn't come here to stand around on the steps all day." He opened the door and headed inside. Naegi shrugged and went along with him, figuring that it wouldn't hurt to do things like this once in a while.

Except that it wasn't just once. The second time came the following week, when a circulating rare book exhibit went on display at a local library, and the third was only a few days later, to a photography collection recently made public. It kept going every few days, long past the time that Naegi would have expected the visits to stop.

Naegi found that he really enjoyed visiting the different places that Togami took him, but he couldn't quite understand why Togami felt so compelled to educate him in the arts. Every time he tried to ask, he got little more than irritated one-word responses. He'd even suggested that some of their other classmates might appreciate these visits too, since they knew a lot more about art than he did, but Togami just glared at him.

The only reason that made sense to Naegi was that maybe Togami just liked having someone around to explain the artwork to. He didn't seem to want to view any of the art in silence, always telling Naegi about every piece they viewed and why it was worthwhile.

Naegi couldn't match him in terms of sheer knowledge of the different artworks, so all he'd been able to offer in return were his reactions. Togami had rolled his eyes in disgust when Naegi had said that a famous photo was kind of weird-looking, going on to point out everything innovative the photographer had done. Naegi had said that didn't make it any less weird. And Togami had obviously not thought very highly of some of the more abstract pieces in the art gallery, reacting with horror when Naegi had said he liked a huge paint-splattered canvas.

"It looks like a child's finger painting," Togami said, crossing his arms and glowering up at the canvas.

"I guess a little," Naegi said, shrugging. "But I like all the colors. I bet it was fun to make!"

"Very in-depth analysis," Togami scathed, but Naegi could tell there was no real venom to it.

Eventually, the rest of their classmates started noticing that Togami seemed to be making a habit of dragging Naegi off after school. It hadn't really occurred to him that anyone would care either way, but after a few weeks, the strangely knowing looks he was getting when his friends thought he wasn't looking were starting to make him jumpy.

It came to a head one morning when Naegi was about to enter the classroom for homeroom just as Fukawa walked up.

"Oh, good morning!" Naegi gave her a cheerful smile and held the door so she could enter.

She took one look at him, turned on her heel, and stalked down the hall in the opposite direction.

Naegi stared after her, startled. "Uh… did I do something wrong?" He heard smothered laughter from the room behind him and turned to see Maizono exchanging amused looks with Celeste and Kirigiri. "What?"

"Well, you can't blame her, can you?" Maizono said, clearly failing in her attempts not to smile. "After all, you did steal her crush."

Naegi blinked. "What are you talking about? I didn't steal anyone."

"I suppose it can't be termed 'stealing' if he wasn't hers to begin with," Celeste said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "But the poor girl certainly felt she'd laid a claim to him. You must have realized she'd object when you two started dating."

"Dating?" Naegi felt like the conversation had left him behind a few steps back. "Wait… are you talking about Togami? But he and I aren't dating."

The background chatter of the classroom ceased. Naegi glanced around the room, a little unnerved by the sudden silenced, to discover that all his friends had turned to stare at him. "What?"

"You mean it's still casual?" Maizono asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "I thought you'd have made it something more serious after all this time."

"That's not it," Naegi said, puzzled. "It's not casual or serious – we're not dating at all. Why did you think we were?"

"But he takes you out all the time," Asahina chimed in from where she was sitting with Ogami. "To all those weird snooty places he likes so much. And he's actually nice to you." She paused. "Well, nicer than he is to anyone else."

"Because we're friends," Naegi said, glancing around the room at all the skeptical faces. "And he just takes me places because… he likes art, I guess. They aren't _dates_."

Kirigiri eyed him for a long moment. "How can you be sure?"

Naegi blinked. "Well… you have to ask someone out for it to be a date, right? Or at least you have to tell them about it. He hasn't said anything, so they aren't dates."

That explanation made sense to Naegi for most of the rest of the next few days… right up until Togami caught him after school again and demanded he go to the now familiar black car.

As they went, Naegi couldn't help but remember the strange conversation with the rest of his classmates. It had been ridiculous, of course it had been. If Togami had wanted to date him, he would have said so.

Wouldn't he?

The question nagged at Naegi's thoughts as they walked through an outdoor sculpture display, until he could barely have said what collection they'd been looking at. Finally, an annoyed huff drew his attention upward, and he realized Togami was scowling down at him.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Oh… no," Naegi admitted, embarrassed. "Sorry. I was thinking."

"And you had to shut down all other brain functions to manage it?" Togami crossed his arms. "What was so engrossing?"

"Well… it was something all our classmates were saying to me a couple days ago." Naegi bit his lip, wondering if he really wanted to bring up such an awkward issue.

"And that was important enough for you to ignore me?" Togami raised an eyebrow.

Naegi knew he could brush it off, forget about the question and just go on as things stood – but he found that he didn't want to do that. He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. "Is this a date?"

Togami went very still. "Excuse me?"

"Well, I know you said that you just wanted me to live up to Hope's Peak standards," Naegi said, his face going a little pink under the other boy's stare. "But Maizono and Kirigiri and the others all said that it looked like more than that."

"I see." Togami's expression was stiff and frozen, like he had to work to move every muscle. "And so you asked for clarification because… you're uncertain."

"Yeah, pretty much." Naegi was starting to think that this might have been a very bad idea. The way Togami's eyes bored into him was not comfortable in the slightest.

"You feel that my actions have allowed room for misinterpretation."

"Um… yes?" Naegi said, not quite sure what Togami was getting at. "I mean, you never actually _said_ why you kept doing this after the first time, and… well, they made some good points. So I figured I'd ask."

"I see." Togami crossed his arms and surveyed Naegi for a long moment, until he started to feel a little like a bug caught under a microscope. "Well, then. Allow me to be clear."

And before Naegi could ask what that was supposed to mean, Togami swooped forward and pressed their lips together in a swift burst of heat that ended almost before it began.

A little taken aback by what had just happened, Naegi felt his hand lifting to touch his lips of its own accord as he stared up at Togami. The other boy's expression was as icy as ever… but small spots of pink blazed bright on his cheekbones as his gaze flickered to Naegi's fingers on his lips.

A smile spread across Naegi's face. "I guess that answers my question!"

"So you can spot the obvious eventually," Togami said, his scowl doing nothing to hide his bright blush. When Naegi just beamed up at him, he turned and began stalking off in a new direction. A few steps away, he looked back over his shoulder. "Well? Come on!"

With a grin, Naegi ran after him.


End file.
